 |
 | "All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and
should be undertaken with painstaking excellence." | |
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Martin Luther King, Jr.
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| "APPETITE, n. An instinct thoughtfully implanted by Providence as a
solution to the labor question." | |
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Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
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| "Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans Upon his hoe and gazes at
the ground, The emptiness of ages in his face, And on his back the burden
of the world." | |
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Charles Edwin Markham
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| "Excellence, in any department, can only be attained by the labor of
a lifetime. It is not purchased at a lesser price." | |
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Samuel Johnson
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| "Give the laborer his wage before his perspiration be dry." | |
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Prophet Muhammad
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| "He that hath a trade hath an estate; he that hath a calling hath an
office of profit and honor." | |
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Benjamin Franklin
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| "I am a true laborer: I earn that I eat, get that I wear, owe no man
hate, envy no man"s happiness, glad of other men"s good, content with my
harm." | |
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William Shakespeare
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| "I hear therefore with joy whatever is beginning to be said of the
dignity and necessity of labor to every citizen. There is virtue yet in
the hoe and the spade, for learned as well as for unlearned hands. And
labor is everywhere welcome; always we are invited to work; only be this
limitation observed, that a man shall not for the sake of wider activity
sacrifice any opinion to the popular judgments and modes of action. An
Oration delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, at Cambridge, August
31, 1837." | |
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Ralph Waldo Emerson
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| "If I shall sell both my forenoons and afternoons to society, as most
appear to do, I"m sure that, for me, there would be nothing left worth
living for." | |
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Henry David Thoreau
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| "It is assumed that labor is available only in connection with
capital; that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow
by the use of it, induces him to labor. This assumed, it is next
considered whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and thus
induce them to work by their consent. Having proceeded so far, it is
naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers or what we
call slaves. Now, there is no such relation between capital and labor as
here assumed .... Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is
only the fruit of labor and could never have existed if labor had not first
existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher
consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection
as any other rights" | |
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Abraham Lincoln
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| "Labour in this country is independent and proud. It has not to ask
the patronage of capital, but capital solicits the aid of labor." | |
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Daniel Webster
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| "Man has a primary property right to his person and his labor." | |
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Louis Adolphe Thiers
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| "Now since man is naturally inclined to avoid pain ? and since labor
is pain in itself ? it follows that men will resort to plunder whenever
plunder is easier than work. History shows this quite clearly. And under
these conditions, neither religion nor morality can stop it. When, then,
does plunder stop? It stops when it becomes more painful and more
dangerous than labor. It is evident, then, that the proper purpose of law
is to use the power of its collective force to stop this fatal tendency to
plunder instead of to work. All the measures of the law should protect
property and punish plunder." | |
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Claude Frédéric Bastiat
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| "Success in our calling is the result of a person?s love of and
belief in the work he has undertaken. Earnest and conscientious labor
often accomplishes more in the end than brilliant genius." | |
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Unknown
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| "The worst crime against working people is a company which fails to
operate at a profit." | |
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Samuel Gompers
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| "Thou, O God, dost sell us all good things at the price of
labor." | |
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Leonardo da Vinci
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| "Your most precious possession is not your financial assets. Your
most precious possession is the people you have working there, and
what they carry around in their heads, and their ability to work
together." | |
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Robert B. Reich
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